The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,299 pages of information about The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
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The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,299 pages of information about The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

To his thoughts the sacred name
Of his mother Astrid came,
  And the tale she oft had told
Of her flight by secret passes
Through the mountains and morasses,
  To the home of Hakon old.

Then strange memories crowded back
Of Queen Gunhild’s wrath and wrack,
  And a hurried flight by sea;
Of grim Vikings, and the rapture
Of the sea-fight, and the capture,
  And the life of slavery.

How a stranger watched his face
In the Esthonian market-place,
  Scanned his features one by one,
Saying, “We should know each other;
I am Sigurd, Astrid’s brother,
  Thou art Olaf, Astrid’s son!”

Then as Queen Allogia’s page,
Old in honors, young in age,
  Chief of all her men-at-arms;
Till vague whispers, and mysterious,
Reached King Valdemar, the imperious,
  Filling him with strange alarms.

Then his cruisings o’er the seas,
Westward to the Hebrides,
  And to Scilly’s rocky shore;
And the hermit’s cavern dismal,
Christ’s great name and rites baptismal
  in the ocean’s rush and roar.

All these thoughts of love and strife
Glimmered through his lurid life,
  As the stars’ intenser light
Through the red flames o’er him trailing,
As his ships went sailing, sailing,
  Northward in the summer night.

Trained for either camp or court,
Skilful in each manly sport,
  Young and beautiful and tall;
Art of warfare, craft of chases,
Swimming, skating, snow-shoe races
  Excellent alike in all.

When at sea, with all his rowers,
He along the bending oars
  Outside of his ship could run. 
He the Smalsor Horn ascended,
And his shining shield suspended,
On its summit, like a sun.

On the ship-rails he could stand,
Wield his sword with either hand,
  And at once two javelins throw;
At all feasts where ale was strongest
Sat the merry monarch longest,
  First to come and last to go.

Norway never yet had seen
One so beautiful of mien,
  One so royal in attire,
When in arms completely furnished,
Harness gold-inlaid and burnished,
  Mantle like a flame of fire.

Thus came Olaf to his own,
When upon the night-wind blown
  Passed that cry along the shore;
And he answered, while the rifted
Streamers o’er him shook and shifted,
  “I accept thy challenge, Thor!”

III

THORA OF RIMOL

“Thora of Rimol! hide me! hide me! 
Danger and shame and death betide me! 
For Olaf the King is hunting me down
Through field and forest, through thorp and town!”
    Thus cried Jarl Hakon
    To Thora, the fairest of women.

Hakon Jarl! for the love I bear thee
Neither shall shame nor death come near thee! 
But the hiding-place wherein thou must lie
Is the cave underneath the swine in the sty.” 
    Thus to Jarl Hakon
    Said Thora, the fairest of women.

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Project Gutenberg
The Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.